Bob had enjoyed his first week working at the convenience store in the village; he’d made a quite a few friends, as well as enough money to get by. That was why he was surprised when he was called into the office, one day.

“Your paperwork has come through from head office at last”, his boss, Jean, said. “Only thing is, you told me you were a man. Why does all the paperwork we can find show you as a woman?”

“Pardon?”, Bob exclaimed. “I’m definitely not a woman, I’m a man. Surely you can see that.”

“You’ve identified as a man and dressed like one since you started, yes, but you can’t be one. Head office has done an exhaustive check, and the only ‘Bob Drake’ at your home address is a Ms Roberta Drake. There is no ‘Mr Robert Drake’ anywhere. Care to explain?”

“I don’t need to explain anything!”, said Bob, indignantly. “Your head office is wrong.”

He pulled out his driving licence from his pocket. Then he looked at it…

‘Ms Roberta Drake’, it said. It showed him as female.

“What the hell?”

Bob was shocked, but he had no way of proving that he was a man, apart from dropping his jeans and showing everything, which he wasn’t nearly annoyed enough to do.

“Seeing as this is some kind of conspiracy”, he said, “I’m going home. I’ve got phone calls to make.”

Bob just walked out, got changed and headed home, leaving Jean with an astonished look on her face.

Back at the flat, he started checking his house bills and other paperwork…

An hour later, his mother, Talia, knocked on the door to visit. She had keys so, getting no answer, she let herself in.

She found Bob sitting on the living room floor, papers everywhere.

“There must be something!”, he was saying, getting really annoyed.

“Hey, hey, what’s up…?”, Talia asked. “Roberta, calm down…!”

Bob’s head snapped up. “What the hell did you call me…!?”

“Please, Roberta, you’re scaring me”, Talia said. “Also, why are you dressed like a man? You know you hate trousers and slacks. I tried to get you to wear a pair of jeans a while back and you nearly disowned me…!”

Bob had had enough.

“You think I’m her too, do you?”, he cried. “Then, let me really scare you. Explain this!”

He stripped down to his boxers, right in front of Talia. She screamed…

Bob was, indeed, a man. Anatomically so, as well as mentally. No breasts, and a set of ‘boy parts’ down below…

“What have you done to yourself?”, Talia wailed. “Who’s mutilated my daughter…!”

She sobbed uncontrollably.

Now this had happened, Bob realised that he was the only one in the wrong. Everyone else thought he was ‘Roberta’, and all the paperwork he’d found only backed this up. Talia was also showing ‘him’ photos on her phone. Photos that definitely showed ‘him’ as a ‘her’…

Talia was hysterical but gradually calming down. Bob decided that they had to get to the bottom of this, one way or the other.

“When was the last time you saw me as me?”, Bob asked Talia.

“About three to four weeks ago”, she said. “You asked me to look after your plants while you were away on holiday. That’s why I let myself in, I knew you were back sometime this week, but not when…”

“I can’t remember a thing about my ‘holiday’”, Bob said. “Funnily enough, now I think of it, all my memories changed about that time, and the ones before that are fuzzy. They can’t have done a good job; there’s a definite point at which they changed. I would have expected to have had at least some memories of a holiday that I went on; I haven’t got any.”

“I think that someone has ‘edited’ them; so, I can remember events, after a fashion, and people; that’s why you are familiar to me. I’d arranged the job with Jean at the store before I went away; I suspect that’s why she was expecting to be working with ‘Roberta’.  She’s been asking me why I was walking around as a man…”

Talia just hugged Bob.

“All I can tell at the moment is my baby is hurting”, she said. “You obviously also didn’t do this to yourself; someone has changed you against your will. Looking closely, I can still see the scars…”

“But why?”, Bob said. Talia had reminded him he was down to my boxers, so he went to get dressed in his ‘man clothes’. Talia took his hand, stopped him, and offered him a skirt and top combination instead, that she’d fished out of a drawer.

“You’d feel most comfortable in this, at home”, she said.

I couldn’t put the women’s clothes on. They felt ridiculous, stupid, uncomfortable. I almost felt physically sick just holding the skirt…

Throwing the clothes across the room, I grabbed my original outfit and quickly dressed.

“Sorry, I can’t…”, I said.

Tears in her eyes, Talia hugged me. “My poor baby…”

Tests proved that attempting to do anything ‘female related’ made Bob feel physically sick. Roberta had been ‘edited’ to turn her into ‘Bob’ and, despite the fuzzy memories, it had actually been very professionally done.

“But why?”, Bob asked, again. “Who could gain anything from me being a man?”

“Not your girlfriend, that’s for sure”, said Talia. “She’s going to blow her stack…!”

“I didn’t even know I had a girlfriend”, Bob said. Talia gasped…

Bob had no memories of Trish at all. She’d been completely edited out of his life. Seeing as they lived together, that was about to get very interesting indeed…

The front door came open, and a tall, leggy redhead stomped in.

“God, I’ve had a day…”, she started. Then she saw the papers all over the place, and Bob and Talia. “What the hell…? This place looks like a bomb’s hit it. Also, I know you, Talia, you’re Roberta’s mum, but who the hell is…”

She peered closer.

“Roberta…? What the fuck have you done to yourself…!”

As Talia said, Trish blew her stack.

“I’m a goddam lesbian, Bobi. I don’t need you to turn yourself into a man, of all things, so I can have sex with you! You know how I feel about men…!”

“Sorry, I don’t…”, Bob said, in a small voice. “I can’t remember you at all…”

Trish went into full meltdown mode, and added to the mess on the floor, not caring that Talia was in the flat as well. She then stormed out and slammed the door.

“I’m thinking that didn’t go well”, said Talia, with a meaningful look at Bob…

“Tell me about Trish”, Bob asked Talia.

“Why?”

“I’m thinking that if she’s been so rubbed out of my life, and that’s her reaction to men, this has been done to have a go at her”, Bob said. “It’s more than a coincidence that I’ve been turned into the one thing she hates, as well as making sure I can’t remember her.”

“That makes sense”, Talia replied. “As much as anything does, at the moment.”

“As far as I remember, Trish’s family is well off”, Talia started. “They own about two or three banks, as well as a construction company. She herself is an influencer on TikTok; she only works at the café to meet people. That’s how she first got involved with you.”

Trish suddenly had a thought.

“I wonder if this is her father’s way of getting her to stay away from you. After all, if you’re a man, it would be an instant turn-off to Trish, as you have seen.”

“Why does she hate men so much?”

“Nobody knows. She suddenly went like it after a birthday party… oh my god! Donnie Bryant!”

“Who?”

“Donnie Bryant. He was Trish’s boyfriend then. They split the morning after the party. A few weeks after he had a ‘run in’ with the police for something. No one knows what; his record was sealed. He did leave the area shortly after, though… What if he did something to Trish that night? It would explain a lot…!”

We both looked up.

Trish was back in the flat. She had come in quietly while we were talking.

“You always were good at working things out, Talia”, she said, crying. “You couldn’t leave it alone! Hearing that name, and seeing Roberta as a guy, has brought it all back. She looks just like Donnie Bryant did then, do you know that?”

“I’m sorry, Bobi. I can’t even look at you while you look like that”, she said.

Talia held her as she cried. She then went to her room and closed the door.

Talia was now even more certain that Roberta’s change was deliberate.

“I can help you, if you’ll let me”, she said.

“Of course, mum, I trust you completely”, Bob said. Talia blinked slightly; it was weird hearing a man say that to her.

“We’ve got to attack this from two angles”, Talia said. “Mental and physical. We’ve got to get you mentally happy with being Roberta again, then get you physically changed back. We can be doing one whilst waiting for the operation to do the other…”

Trish had been listening to all of this.

“I completely overlooked that they changed you against you will, even though it was to get at me”, she said, coming back out of her room. “I’m so sorry…”

To Bob’s amazement, she managed to kiss him.

“I know my girlfriend is in there, somewhere”, she said. “But, until she gets back, you’re really going to need a shave…!”

The mental blocks were quickly overcome by a psychologist friend of Talia’s, who knew what to do as soon as the situation was explained to her. Within a couple of weeks, Roberta was back, at least mentally. Talia had bought her a set of breast forms and a gaff, and she could wear her own clothes again. Trish was overjoyed.

A month later, Bob’s operation took place. He was now truly Roberta again.

Despite Trish and Talia’s protests, he was back to work as soon as he could. Jean was happy to see her back; she’d been worried.

As Bob had been turned back to Roberta, more memories had come back. She had described the people that had collected her from the flat to take her on her supposed holiday. The people that had instead delivered her to a clinic for her ‘conversion’…

Trish was furious, but not at Roberta, this time.

“Tell Talia her suspicions were correct”, she said. “The people that took you work for my father.”

When Talia, Trish and Roberta went to see him, he confessed to everything.

“I was only trying to protect my daughter”, he said.

“Yes”, said Talia. “By mutilating mine!”

She had backhanded him, then, sending him flying.

Before anyone had reacted, the police had stormed in.

They had recorded the whole conversation by a ‘bug’ in Trish’s coat.

She had single-handedly brought down her own father.

The police had been after him for years…